


Two Halves of the Same Weapon

by terajk



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Chromatic Character, Gen, Teacher-Student Relationship, White Lotus LNY Exchange, mangled metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terajk/pseuds/terajk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Look, Sifu Hotman!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Halves of the Same Weapon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



"Look, Sifu Hotman!"

Zuko had learned very quickly to fear these words. He dreaded them more than "Pai Sho tournament" or "tsungi horn" or even "Hello, brother," if he were honest. (He still shuddered to think of the time Aang had showed him the picture of his father that he'd made _out of macaroni._ ) But he was a sifu now—sifu to the most powerful being in the world—so he took a deep breath and said: "What."

Aang traced a shape in the air, a trail of fire following his finger. A moment after the trail closed, it disappeared. "It was Momo," he said, "holding a peach."

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. When he was sure he could speak without groaning or yelling or bursting into tears, he said, "Now that you're done with art class, can we get down to some _real_ training?"

"Sure, Sifu," Aang said. The brightness in his voice, Zuko could tell, was a stone cap over a well of disappointment. He almost felt sorry. _Almost._

"Now, hit me," Zuko said.

Aang punched. His fire was warm and bright, as always, but there was something jerky in his movements. Zuko had watched him practice with Katara and Toph, whipping water and throwing boulders into the air. He was not a puppet on strings with them. Was the Avatar still afraid of him? That thought hurt more than he'd expected.

No, Zuko saw now, sweeping the Avatar's fire away with his hands and moving back, back, back. Aang was hesitating. He was punching and pulling away, as if he were trying to write a letter to his girlfriend (or something) and edit it at the same time. He was not comfortable with the conviction, the violence, needed to control fire.

The world is doomed, thought Zuko.

"No! _Hit_ me!"

"I'm _trying,_ Sifu!" He punched again, and again his arm faltered, trying to go forward and back at the same time. His stance was off; as Zuko backed away—smoothly, effortlessly—Aang's left foot was too far behind him.

He could not abide this...this... _cowardace._ If he had known the hope of the world needed babying he would've stayed in the palace, tried harder to enjoy being the son his father wanted.

No, he wouldn't have. And he was not going to let some kid wreck the decision he'd made, the one he gave up everything for. Not even if that kid was the Avatar. "Try harder!" he said.

"I can't!"

"You have to!"

" I _can't kill him, Zuko!"_

This crap again? Zuko has tried to be patient—he respected honor and principles, after all—but it was hard when he knew for damn sure that

"He'll kill you."

"I know," said Aang.

"And if you do beat my father without killing him," said Zuko, "do you think he'll just say: 'You know what? You're right. I'm gonna go away now and not cause any more trouble'? The most powerful firebender in the world?" The man who scarred his own son's face? Who banished him, sent him on a fool's errand and fully expected never to see him again?

"No," said Aang. "But each life is precious."

"Not my father's."

 _"Each_ life, Zuko." In the Avatar's eyes was something that wasn't there five seconds ago, something Zuko had never seen in them before.

Fire.

He was wrong; Aang was no coward. But what did he do now? The Comet was coming; he couldn't just drop everything and—

Zuko reached behind him, unsheathed his dao blades. "Take these," he said.

The Avatar looked at them, at him.

"Do it," Zuko said.

Aang grasped the hilts gently underneath Zuko's fists, slowly—not with fear, but with reverence. "I thought...they would be heavier," he said.

"They're supposed to be light," Zuko told him. "So you can cut your enemy in half before he even knows he's dead." Aang's eyes widened. That...was not the effect he'd intended. "The swords are like...a conveyor belt...with flowers on it. And it keeps pushing the flowers into the furnace at the end."

"What's a conveyor belt, Sifu?" Aang asked.

"It's a strip that...pushes things. And it always loops back to the beginning."

Now Aang's eyes widened with knowledge. "Oh, _I_ get it! The flowers are painted on, and they go into the furnace over and over again _forever!_ Because violence only feeds on itself and doesn't solve anything!"

"What?" said Zuko. "No! They're real flowers! They go into the furnace and die!"

"Oh." Aang thought. "Well, that's just silly," he said.

"It is _not_ silly!" Why wasn't Uncle here? He said Avatar stuff all the time: stuff about the four nations and balance and all the things he'd learned from observing other cultures...

Wait.

"The blades are silent and quick," the sifu said. "Like air."

There was a light in his student's eyes then, a candle flame that he wanted somehow to keep there forever. The Avatar lifted one of the swords over his head, sliced it down, heard the _woosh._ He grinned.

"The swords are an extension of your body," Zuko said. "Like—"

"Badgermole claws."

"That's right." Damn, he was good at this.

Aang took a deep breath, and soon he _did_ look like something subterranean digging a tunnel. He swept his arms out slowly, tentatively (one, two, three, four), and Zuko backed up and up and up. And just when he thought this idea was a total failure—what? would the Avatar defeat the Firelord by invading his personal space?—Aang stopped practicing and started... _playing._ He crossed the blades in front of him; he spun in a half-circle and when he pointed the left sword at Zuko's nose, his arm didn't jut. It flowed.

Aang crossed the swords again, and when he pulled them apart, flames flowed, too, licking the edges. "Hey, Sifu Hotman! Look!"

It had taken Zuko years to learn that trick, years of sweat and hard work and flame that bloomed in puffs. It was like he'd thought at the North Pole, during the blizzard: the Avatar was like his sister, after all. "Don't  _call_ me that!" he said.

Aang pulled back; the tongues of flame sucked themselves back into his hands, ashamed. "Sorry...Zuko."

"Forget it. Keep going."

"I'd like to try without the swords now," Aang said, handing them over. Zuko sheathed them.

Now the Avatar was swimming through his flame, a turtle-duck at play in a sea of fire, and Zuko realized that he wasn't like Azula at all. Or himself, for that matter. Soon there were whips snaking out of the Avatar's palms.

Back and forward and back. It was like they were dancing with the dragons again. But dance—play—had never come naturally to Zuko, and it wasn't long before he fell on his ass. The fire-whips were inches from his nose; Aang, leaning forward, was more shocked than he was. The flames hid again.

That pissed Zuko off.

"Oh, sorry, Zuko! I—"

When Zuko grabbed him by the sash, Aang made a small "Ack!" noise. Then he crumpled (no, something gentler; folded), and caught himself, his hands on Zuko's shoulders. In his eyes was terror, and that was good. Perhaps now he'd know what hesitation, what pity, what thinking the Firelord's life was precious would earn him.

But then the terror broke and the Avatar fell into him, throwing his arms around his neck—" _Ack!"_ said Zuko—and laughing.

 _Laughing._

And the worst part, the very worst part, was that Zuko was laughing, too.


End file.
